With daylight savings about to kick in, twilight golf will begin again on October 10th. This competition is open to all players, both members and non-members. Cost is only $10 (members $5) which includes 9 holes and a free BBQ at the conclusion of play. Tee off is between 5:00 and 5:30pm at the Penola Golf Club. 

With finals fever in the air, the Penola Golf Club is the next club to go into finals mode. This Sunday sees the Club Championship Quarter and Semi-Finals, both played over 18 holes. The finals will be played next Sunday, 12th September.

Order of play will begin with the C-Grade. Matches will be 9.00 S Skeer (4) v D Strother (5), 9.06 S McPherson (3) v D Boyd (6) with Pete Bullock (1) and Bill Cheers (2) awaiting their opponents in the afternoon.

In the B-Grade, the matches will be 9.12 C Evans (4)  v T Gleeson (5), 9.18 S Anderson (3) v J Wilkinson (6), 9.24 P Harmer (2) v  A Hutchesson (7) with Peter Walker (1) having a first round bye.

In the Open Championship  the order will be 9.30 J Mossop (4) v D Ferguson (5), 9.36 J Briggs (3) v L Storer (6), 9.42 J Agnew (2) v D Murray (7)and  9.48 L Price (1) v G Kidman (8).

The D grade will tee off at 11:00 with A Meyer (2) taking on T Williams (3) to decide who will meet A Mathys (1) in the final.

Don Ferguson has found a good patch of form heading into this weekend’s championship finals after a very solid nett 68 in tricky conditions at Penola Golf Club  on Sunday. Despite the Bureau of Meteorology issuing severe weather warnings for gale force winds, 22 golfers took on the course for the Monthly Medal stroke play championship. Ferguson would have been chuffed with his win, but unfortunately he hadn’t won a Monthly Medal in the past 12 months and therefore was ineligible to be crowned the A-Grade stroke play champion.  This didn’t take the swagger out of his step as he hit 11 pars and a birdie on the 8th on his way to a comfortable victory.

Runner up was Lindsay Storer, who more importantly, won the A-Grade stroke play championship as the highest placed monthly medal winner. Storer had nett 72, mainly thanks to a strong back nine where he picked up 21 points after having 38 off the stick.

John Mossop finished third with nett 73 and would have learnt a lot after playing with his quarter final opponent. Peter Walker finished fourth in another steady display, shooting nett 74.

In the B-Grade, Pete Bullock had a stellar day as he hit nett 69 to win the day’s prize, as well as the B-Grade stroke play championship. He was consistent all day with pars coming regularly and had an added bonus of sinking a putt from off the green on the 7th for a birdie.

A three way countback was needed to decide the runner up, with Ant Mathys winning with his nett 76. His score was also good enough to win the C-Grade stroke play championship.

Allen Meyer finished third on countback also with nett 76, narrowly ahead of Paul Harmer.

The nearest the pins were won by Paul Harmer (7th), Jeremy Briggs (9th), Tony Gleeson (16th) with the best 2nd on the 12th taken out by Greg Hutchesson.

A small field of 9 players contested in a stableford competition on AFL Grand Final day. David Strother finished with the best score of 37 points, narrowly ahead of Bill Cheers and Leo Price on 36 points.   

Next Saturday is the Bernie Flood Monthly Medal, with the forecast so far set to hit a toasty 28C. This event will be followed the next day by the club championship quarter and semi-finals. 

A dedicated group of 19 players battled out the final round of the Captain’s Stableford Trophy in perfect golfing weather.

The best scores came from the B grade where a countback was needed to determine the winner with Ant Mathys winning over Bill Cheers. Both players had 40 points but Mathys had the better back 9 which gave him the victory. He managed to avoid the dreaded wipe out, with nothing worse than a double bogey. A birdie on the 17th was a highlight which yielded him 4 points for that hole.

Cheers was having a day out early with 21 points on the front with a clinical card of 2 pars and the rest bogeys. A little trouble after the break saw him score only one point on the first 2 holes before finishing strong, also scoring a birdie on the 17th.

A further one point behind was Allen Meyer who on most days would have done enough for the win. He too started strong with 21 points before the turn before having a run of 3 doubles before getting onboard the bogey train to finish with 39 points. Pete Bullock again was in the top 4 with a lazy 37 points. He had a stellar front with 23 points before struggling home with a meagre 14 points.

In the A grade Jeremy Briggs again came out on top with 37 points. With his current form he is looking to be one of the favourites come Championships. A countback saw Curt Evans beat out Peter Walker with both scoring 36 points. Evans was more consistent on the back 9 which was the catalyst of his score with Walker having a rare wipe on the 14th potentially costing him the overall victory. Rounding out the last position was President Stump Murray with 35 points.

Patrick’s of Coonawarra NTP winners were Bullock the 7th, Walker 9th with Briggs taking the best 2nd on the 11th. The card steward, Andrew Hutchesson, was reluctant to write in the NAGA as he had a day not to remember with a paltry 28 points which was low enough to take home the chocolates. 

On Saturday a field of 27 golfers took to the course to play for the Wynn’s Coonawarra Estate Monthly Medal in ideal golfing weather.

The standout player came from the B Grade with Paul Harmer the only player to break handicap with a nett 69. Harmer may have been struggling with some length off the tee but his short game around the greens was on song. with good approach shots and some great putts with the flat stick he was always going to be hard to beat.

There was more than daylight to the runner-up with Steven Skeer beating Peter Walker on countback with nett 75. Skeer was more attuned to the putting green, being 6 shots better than Walker, which seen him edge out for the fabulous red. A shot further behind was Tony Gleeson who had two completely different 9’s which may have cost him a potential win.

In the A Grade it was a tighter comp with Jock Agnew beating out Don Ferguson with a countback of nett 72. Both players putted well with Ferguson dropping the bundle on the 9th  which may have cost him the win.

Another countback was needed  to determine the next places with Leo Price narrowly getting the points over Jeremy Briggs with nett 73.

In the C Grade Allen Meyer came out in front with a nett 76. A up and down round was still enough to beat out David Strumber who seemed to have caught some bad karma from his playing partner but finished the day with nett 79. Another countback saw David Boyd beat Ant Mathys with nett 80. Boyd may have been talking up the Tigers but there was definitely no power outage as he so blatantly stated all day.

Long Drive winners on the 15th was George Kidman for A, Andrew Hutchesson in the B with Allen Meyer the C. NTP winners were Jeremy Briggs on the 7th, Nathan Williams on the 9th and Lindsay Storer on the 13th. The best 2nd on the 11th went to Jock Agnew with Bill Cheers winning the putting comp with 27 putts.

On Sunday Penola Golf club hosted the Beachport/ Millicent/ Penola interclub challenge which seen a field of 33 golfer battle some rather windy conditions.

 Using local knowledge saw Penola victorious with a combined 316 points. This was lead by Captain Greg Hutchesson, who shook off the demons of the day before, to post 35 points in a great display of driving and chipping. Also to do well for Penola was Bill Cheers and Peter Walker with 34 points.